The invention disclosed herein relates generally to energy management apparatus, and more particularly to an arrangement in which control parameters for a closed loop environmental regulating system can be modified by instructions from a load management system having the closed loop environmental regulating system as one of several loads.
Heating and air conditioning equipment consumes substantial amounts of electrical energy. The relative scarcity and high cost of energy has made energy conservation increasingly important. Further, because the rates which electrical energy suppliers charge for electrical energy often increase as the rate of consumption increases, it has become important for users of electrical energy to manage their consumption so that peak usage rates are not exceeded, and sometimes so that rates of usage during certain times of the day are minimized.
Over the years, a large variety of methods and apparatus have been developed in attempts to control total electrical energy consumption by managing the operation of individual electrical loads. It is known to schedule the operation of major electrical loads relative to one another and/or in accordance with the time of day to even out the rate of energy consumption and/or minimize energy consumption during high energy cost times of the day. It is also known to control the duty cycle of high energy consuming loads and to coordinate the ON times of individual loads to minimize peaks in energy consumption. Another method of reducing total energy consumption is to decrease the supply voltage by a small amount. However, due to differences in factors of principal importance in environmental control loads and other types of loads, known load control systems frequently do not possess the flexibility necessary for optimum control of both types of loads.
The applicants have provided a unique distributed load control system for integrated management of a variety of loads, among which may be included one or more closed loop environmental control systems, the overall system providing great flexibility in controlling the operation of individual loads.